


A bubbly Christmas breeze

by manubibi



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, Gift Fic, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Rare Pairings, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:52:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5519438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manubibi/pseuds/manubibi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little Christmas gift (since I'm broke and I can't afford actual material gifts OTZ) for my Skype/Tumblr Free!fandom friends, in particular: Mizzy, Julian and Ilana! ^^ It's set two years in the future. <br/><i>"Nagisa, I'm telling you, that's not where I live. Yes, I'm sure. I moved here a year ago, I know what my address is," Haruka replies on the phone, with a slightly bothered frown. "Yes... No. No, wait. You dropped off at the wrong subway station. I know, it's a big city."</i><br/>His long, drawn out sigh said all he had left to say. "I told you to get a map."<br/>Nagisa, on the other end, sounded so excited to be lost in the giant, enormous city of Tokyo. He almost yelled in the phone, while passerbys shot him disapproving looks for making so much noise in the middle of the street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A bubbly Christmas breeze

"Nagisa, I'm telling you, that's not where I live. Yes, I'm sure. I moved here a year ago, I know what my address is," Haruka replies on the phone, with a slightly bothered frown. "Yes... No. No, wait. You dropped off at the wrong subway station. I know, it's a big city."  
His long, drawn out sigh said all he had left to say. "I told you to get a map."  
Nagisa, on the other end, sounded so excited to be _lost_ in the giant, enormous city of Tokyo. He almost yelled in the phone, while passerbys shot him disapproving looks for making so much noise in the middle of the street.  
"Right, right!" He laughed, and then walked fast, back on his tracks. "I can't wait to see you again!" He added, with the biggest smile which he only reserves to his elder, his lover.  
"Me too," Haruka replied, barely able to hide a warm, touched smile from his voice, but it lit his features up with a tenderness he had never failed to show towards his younger friend and, lately, boyfriend. It had developed so slowly: for a bit both of them were even unaware that there was anything at all, right there. And yet, through their calls and e-mails after Haruka's graduation, they had quietly slipped into a more intimate kind of communication, despite being several miles apart.  
Haruka had woken up one day and realized he needed to read or hear anything from Nagisa first thing in the day, for it to be a good one. It had been a bittersweet feeling, if anything.  
Nagisa had fallen asleep one night, sobbing, all curled up under his blankets and biting his pillow, because he was missing a pair of blue eyes too much to contain it in such a tiny body. The same eyes he was merely steps away from. It had felt like he was going to explode.  
And now his feet were stomping on the ground, with all the energy he had spared for today, ready to finally meet after two whole years of not touching, not looking into each other's eyes.  
  
Haruka hung up with a spark in his deep, magnetic eyes. In those two years, he had barely gotten any taller, but his features had sharpened up, his eyes had gotten smarter, his composure more solemn, and his body had developed to be leaner, but also more muscly, even though it looked proportioned. Otherwise, he looked identical to how he did before.  
Life, movement, but especially a buzz of _excitement_ that ran up and down his spine made him straighten up. And even though his expression was the same as always - deadpan, emotionless, some people would say - the ring of Nagisa's exhilarated voice had made his eyes squint a little, like a happy cat, and had made his pupils dilate joyfully. He took quick steps towards the window, spied the outside, down on the street. Nagisa wasn't there yet. He glanced again a few seconds after, sniffling, his pupils blown wide. Nagisa had dropped off two stations away from the one he was supposed to be at, which made Haruka guess it would take a long while before he would be able to actually be there. Might as well get comfortable and do something while he waited.  
He had made Nagisa a gift in his spare time, and he was looking down at it, sitting in his hand. It was something small, simple, and maybe ridiculous, but that was how he knew Nagisa was going to love it. His lips curled slightly upward, before he remembered to stick it in a pink box with some silly, childish pattern and a yellow bow on top of it. He also knew Nagisa would have fun scratching and tearing at the paper.  
And then he sat down on his cozy sofa, looking around at his relatively new apartment: the heating was on, so the rooms were warm and comfortable, the walls mostly naked aside from a few pictures, paintings he had made and trophies lined on shelves, and a whole bunch of soft blankets lying pretty much everywhere, other than a few decorations - mostly dolphin-related - which adorned the minimal furnishing. He was already hearing Nagisa's voice in awe of 'Haru-chan's place all for himself!'  
And then he began fidgeting. They had never actually voiced the fact that they were together. Having the change in their relationship been a very slow and gradual one, they had not realized it had gotten to that point where one cannot imagine spending the day without being next to the other, without hearing their voice, without one of their silly jokes. Without one's guts being assaulted by waves of stress and warmth, neither pleasant nor sour, at the thought of the other. Was it real?  
  
His doorbell rang several times, shaking his thoughts off like cold shivers, and he did not realize how fast he had slammed the door open until the person outside's eyes fluttered wide. But then a pair of sweet, excited magenta orbs shot through his own, and then a body smaller than his - plus what seemed to be a satchel - bashed against his in a storm of squeals and a string of "Haru-chan, Haru-chan, _Haru-chan_!"  
He had not even really been allowed to look at Nagisa properly, but he pushed that complaint aside a moment, holding him tight against his own chest. The warmth in it, between their thumping hearts, took the place of anxieties, anticipation, excitement, only to leave a total satisfaction which felt so _normal_. Contrarily to what he had expected, seeing Nagisa again was not an exception. Holding him, feeling his fingers dig gently through his own raven hair, that was not special. It was like being _home_.  
It tasted like hot chocolate with marshmallows in Nagisa's mouth. And he decided he wished to share that taste, looking up with a bright, clear grin and then pressing a tiny kiss on Haruka's lips. The other blinked, his heart picked up considerably in speed and then calmed down, although butterflies were beginning to flap around in his stomach again.  
"Hi," Nagisa finally spoke, and Haruka said nothing, although the soft blink and the smile on his lips said everything he could not find the words to express. The smaller hugged him again, while Haruka slowly leaned to close the door.  
"Ah, oops," Nagisa chirped then, looking back and then blushing slightly up to his ears.  
"It's okay. Come," Haruka told him, sliding his own hand into the other young man's, which made his heart bounce again. _What am I, a fourteen year old_? He lead him to the living room, and just as he had thought, Nagisa turned around a few times taking everything in with his expression lighting up in awe, even though the decor was not that special.  
He looked so much more mature, now. His hair, now peppered with dry, cold snow flakes, was still curly and quite long just the way it had been two years before, the moment they had told each other "see you". However he had gotten a bit wider, he had gotten to look a bit more like a _man_ , or the way he wanted to anyway. His build was still not _exactly_ as strong and broad as his high school's peers (especially Makoto, damn his giant back and his height and everything he was, that Nagisa could never be).   
"This is your place!" He squealed, grasping on both of Haruka's hands, and amusing him.  
"Yeah."  
"It's so pretty! Ah, I see you have dolphins around!" Nagisa noted, trotting over to touch every single one of them.  
"They're delicate," Haruka warned, even though he knew the other would _never_ break anything in there.  
"I'm so proud of you, Haru-chan," Nagisa blurted out, beaming, and Haruka blinked at him as if the light radiating from him was blinding. "I watch all your races. I am so so so so proud of you!" He repeated, his arms going wide.  
Haruka's eyes trembled in emotion, but he smiled silently before reaching for the table in front of him, since he knew Nagisa had eyed the small, showy gift box.  
"This is for you," he murmured, stretching his arm. Nagisa accepted the gift with gracious, thin hands and waited a couple of seconds before swiftly sitting down and unceremoniously attacking the gift wrap, without even taking his coat and satchel off.  
Inside the box was sitting a handmade, wooden keychain in the shape of their high school's mascot, Iwatobi-chan, but wearing a penguin onesie and holding a dolphin plushie in its tiny, minuscule really, wings. It had been carefully hand painted, and it provoked several changes of expression on Nagisa's face. Eventually, he looked up with his eyes watery, cradling the keychain like it was a small newborn chick. That look on his face made it worth it: carving on wood and paying maniacal attention to every detail, for sure.  
"Thank you!" Nagisa finally erupted, after leaning the little gift carefully on the table and rushing to, once again, wrap his arms around Haruka's neck. "I love you, Haru-chan!"  
Haruka hugged him back, in silence, but the soft tension around the younger's shoulders said it all, he hoped.  
  
"I have a gift too," Nagisa eventually said, now sitting on Haruka's sofa, all curled up against him.  
"Yeah?" The other replied softly.  
"Yeah," Nagisa confirmed, kissing his cheek, and then fished into his satchel, picking up a rectangular gift-wrapped object, and laid it on Haruka's lap. "I didn't make anything myself because I'm not good at handmade things like you, and it's not the most original thing, but... I hope you'll like it anyway."  
The other, eyeing Nagisa first and then the mysterious wrap, delicately tore the paper around it, and from it out popped a frame, with a picture in it. It was a picture of their old team hugging after winning their last relay together. He remembered that moment like it had happened the day before, like yesterday's victory had been about swimming with his best friends, his team. His eyes shone for a moment, before he looked at Nagisa.  
"I didn't know someone had taken a picture of this," he commented, in a low, imperceptibly shaky voice.  
"I tracked down everybody who had a camera at that race and made them give me all their pictures," Nagisa replied, as if that had not been completely crazy and over-the-top. Haruka blinked at that reply, and waited for the 'kidding!' moment, but it did not come. Instead, Nagisa had leaned his head on Haruka's shoulder, asking, "do you like it?"  
"... Yes," Haruka replied after a few seconds, actually impressed, and then kissed Nagisa's head. He was not going to stay long - he was due to go back home in the weekend - but Haruka thought being able to be together at all was, really, the most relieving thing that could happen to him. "Merry Christmas," he added, while big, pink-ish eyes turned up to look into his own with a happy, joyful smile.  
"Merry Christmas, Haru-chan."

**Author's Note:**

> Well, what can I say? I'm your typical asshole who writes up gift fics right at the last moment. Also, I'm posting it now because tomorrow I'll have _people_ over and I'll already have to post a fic update so I'm not sure I'll be able to do more than that. So you get it a day before XD hope you like it! ^^  <3


End file.
